Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu said Monday that the nastiness in the past few days leading to the state’s primary was natural as he spoke at a jam-packed POLITICO-sponsored event at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H.

Citing Gingrich’s complaints during Sunday’s debate about Mitt Romney’s “pious baloney,” POLITICO editor-in-chief John Harris started things off at the New Hampshire Primary POLITICO Preview by pointing out that the candidates had entered “the high-horse phase of the campaign — everybody’s up on their high-horse, sputtering with indignation.”

“But Newt Gingrich always complains,” quipped Sununu, drawing laughs from the crowd of more than 240 people. “This always happens at the end of a campaign. Somebody’s looking at numbers they don’t like, and they figure they’ll get in one more brilliant comment in that’s going to turn the whole thing around.

“Nastiness ratchets up as time ratchets down,” added CNN’s Candy Crowley during a subsequent panel discussion. “More importantly, there is very little time to stop Mitt Romney.”

Sununu, a key surrogate for the former Massachusetts governor, also managed expectations for his candidate, parrying a question about expectations with a joke.

“Someone asked me if I thought Gov. Romney was in a good position, and I think if he wins New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and the next six primaries, he’ll be OK,” said Sununu, eliciting another round of chuckles from the crowd.

Ovide Lamontagne, a Republican New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate, also appeared at the POLITICO event, arguing that this election cycle was different because of emphasis on choosing a Republican who could beat President Barack Obama.

“This has been a very interesting year. I don’t think I ever recall the word ‘winning’ as often as I have this election cycle. In New Hampshire, sometimes people vote for candidates to make a statement,” he said, referring to the state’s choice of Pat Buchanan in 1992.

But this year, Lamontagne said, voters “are saying they want to back a winner.”

One point that was emphasized and reemphasized throughout the event was the independent nature of New Hampshire’s voters.

“In New Hampshire, they like a surprise — they don’t like to go by anybody else’s script,” asserted longtime CBS news anchor Dan Rather in a media panel also featuring Crowley, The Washington Post’s Dan Balz, ABC’s Jonathan Karl and NBC’s Chuck Todd.

Lamontagne also commented that Gingrich had wasted an opportunity in the state by not making better use of his endorsement from the New Hampshire Union Leader.

“He didn’t take advantage of it, frankly. The Union Leader’s endorsement is the most important endorsement for any Republican candidate in a Republican primary. … Newt Gingrich spent a day and a half, two days, after he was endorsed by the Union Leader… and didn’t capitalize on that endorsement,” said Lamontagne, who also ran in the state’s Republican Senate primary in 2010.

POLITICO Chief White House Correspondent Mike Allen ended the event with a shout-out to Charlie and Judy Black, two attendees who were at the event on their wedding anniversary. Allen also remembered to give a hat-tip to the tipster who had informed him of this fact.